Chief Sunday Adeniyi Adegeye MFR (born 22 September 1946), known professionally as King Sunny Adé, is a Nigerian jùjú singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is regarded as one of the first African pop musicians to gain international success, and has been called one of the most influential musicians of all time. For his longevity, fluid moves, boundless stage energy and vast collaborative variety, he is Africa’s Mick Jagger.
In March 2017, he was appointed ambassador for the “Change Begins With Me” campaign by the Nigerian minister of Information Lai Mohammed.
Adé was born in Osogbo to a Nigerian royal family from Ondo and Akure, thus making him an Omoba of the Yoruba people. His father was a church organist, while his mother, Maria Adegeye (née Adesida), was a trader. As a member of the Adesida dynasty, his mother’s relatives included her father Oba Adesida I (who ruled Akure for 60 years) and would later include her nephew and Adé’s cousin, Oba Adebiyi Adegboye Adesida Afunbiowo II, a future king of Akure.
Adé left grammar school in Ondo City under the pretense of going to the University of Lagos. It was thus in Lagos that his mercurial musical career began.
Sunny Adé’s musical sound has evolved from the early days. His career began with Moses Olaiya’s Federal Rhythm Dandies, a highlife band. He left to form a new band, The Green Spots, in 1967. Over the years, for various reasons ranging from changes in his music to business concerns, Sunny Adé’s band changed its name several times, first to African Beats and then to Golden Mercury.
King Sunny was influenced by Juju pioneer Tunde Nightingale and borrowed stylistic elements from his ‘So wa mbe’ style of juju.
He founded the King Sunny Ade Foundation, an organization that includes a performing arts center, a state of the art recording studio, and housing for young musicians.
He is a visiting lecturer at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and recipient of the Order of the Federal Republic.
Sunny Adé introduced the pedal steel guitar to Nigerian pop music. He introduced the use of synthesizers, clavinet, vibraphone, tenor guitar into the jùjú music repertoire such as dub and wah-wah guitar licks. Adé said he used these instruments not as an attempt to innovate, but as a substitute for traditional jùjú instruments which were too difficult to find and/or impractical for touring. The pedal steel guitar, for instance, was added to his repertoire as a sound-alike for an African violin.
Sunny Adé with his band invented his unique sound and instrumental which he mostly use as an entrance song during live performances. The sound was made with a phalanx of electric guitars that functions like a percussion section, and talking drums that sound like a gossipy Greek chorus.
After the death of Bob Marley, Island Records began looking for another third world artist to put on its contract, while Fela Kuti had just been signed by Arista Records. Producer Martin Meissonnier introduced King Sunny Adé to Chris Blackwell, leading to the release of Juju Music in 1982. Robert Palmer claims to have brought King Sunny Adé to Island’s attention, his familiarity being from his life on Malta in the 60s listening to African Radio and Armed Forces Radio. Adé gained a wide following with this album and was soon billed as “the African Bob Marley”.
Sunny Adé has said that his refusal to allow Island to meddle with his compositions and over-Europeanise and Americanise his music were the reasons why Island then decided to look elsewhere.
SOURCE: https://en.m.wikipedia.org
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